We are the modern cunt
positive anti reason
unbounded unleashed unforgiving
we see art with our cunt we make art with our cunt
we believe in jouissance madness holiness and poetry
we are the virus of the new world disorder
rupturing the symbolic from within
saboteurs of big daddy mainframe
the clitoris is a direct line to the matrix
the VNS MATRIX
terminators of the moral codes
mercenaries of slime
go down on the altar of abjection
probing the visceral temple we speak in tongues
infiltrating disrupting disseminating
corrupting the discourse
we are the future cunt
In 1991, VNS Matrix unleashed their collaborative manifesto A Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century. They put it on the internet and a giant travelling billboard. From there, it quickly leaked onto the radio and magazine pages and other IRL ephemera, jumping from medium to medium at rapid pace, eventually coming to rest in the centre of a 6m x 3m billboard, flanked by speculative/fantastical icons, in the form of a futuristic sigil. It was in this gyne-canonical text that the term “cyberfeminism” first appeared.
They say that they foster disorder in all its forms. Confusion troubles violent debates disarray upsets disturbances incoherences irregularities divergences complications disagreements discords clashes polemics discussions contentions brawls disputes conflicts routs débâcles cataclysms disturbances quarrels agitation turbulence conflagrations chaos anarchy.
... slipperiness is human, which VNSMatrix’s The Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century establishes clearly. This might be the manifesto’s mostl asting note. It is a bodily text: in seventeen lines, it covers cunts, the clitoris, tongues, slimes, orgasm, and a virus. Doing so, it articulates feminism on the internet as viscera—related to viscera, slime, wetware, and birth. It still feels that way: messy, howling, but very much alive.
Audio
Project Types
- Billboard
- Collaboration
- Manifesto
- Online
- Publication
- Sound Work
- Text
Project History
- 1991
- Manifesto written and distributed . Adelaide, South Australia, distributed globally
- 1991
- Performance, launch CY-MISH MASH WORLD. Ealaine Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
- 1992
- Exhibition Watch This Space. Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney, Australia
- 2017
- Exhibition Net Art Anthology. Rhizome, New Museum, New York
- 1991-
- global proliferation as minafesto-as-meme .
Events
- Producing Futures 2019
- Fem Flix 2016
- Kiss Kiss Bang Bang 2007
- very cyberfeminist international 2001
- Ars Electronica 1996
- 25 Years of Performance Art 1995
- 5th International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) 1994
- Adelaide Festival 1994
- Media Futures 1994
Attached Files
- A Cyberfeminist Manifesto, VNS-Matrix. Euskera translation audio [mpeg 1.11MB]
- A Cyberfeminist Manifesto, VNS Matrix. Castellano translation audio [mpeg 1.11MB]
- net art anthology, rhizome new museum, New York. A Cyberfeminist Manifesto, poster VNS Matrix 2017 [pdf 2.03MB]
Publications
- Technofeminisms: The Future Cunt in Fictioning: The Myth-Functions of Contemporary Art and Philosophy, 2019
- VNS Matrix in The Art Happens Here: Net Art Anthology, 2019
- Challenges to immateriality in Contemporary Art and Digital Culture, 2017
- We Make Art with our Cunts in Pyura Chilensis, 2017
- (New) Media in Gender: Sources, Perspectives, and Methodologies, 2016
- A Brief History of Cyberfeminism in Artsy, 2016
- Feminist Worldbuilding in the Australian Cyberswamp in Rhizome, 2016
- The cyberfeminists who called themselves ‘the future cunt’ in Dazed, 2016
- ‘We Are the Future Cunt’ in Motherboard, Vice, 2014
- An Oral History of the First Cyberfeminists in Motherboard, Vice, 2014
- Cyberfeminism in The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media, 2014
- Monstrous Agents in Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, 2014
- Revisiting Cyberfeminism in Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 2011
- Cyber-(ob)scene in Art & Obscenity, 2007
- Early Internet Art in Internet Art, 2004
- The Cyberfeminist Fantasy of the Pleasure of the Cyborg in Cyberfeminism. Next Protocols, 2004
- NET.ART in NET.ART, 2003
- Prefiguring Cyberculture in Prefiguring Cyberculture: An Intellectual History, 2002
- Working the Screen in RealTime + On Screen: Working the Screen 2001, 2001
- “Slimy metaphors for technology: ‘the clitoris is a direct line to the Matrix’” in eWRe electronic Writing Research ensemble, 1998
- A Report on Cyberfeminism in Switch|Journal, 1998
- Attack of the CyberFeminists in Switch|Journal, 1998
- Australian Women Artists & New Media Technologies in Mesh: Journal of Experimenta Media Arts, 1996
- VNS Matrix: Cyberfeminists in artwork: Community Arts Network SA, 1996
- AOL: Acker-On-Line in 21•C magazine, 1995
- Cybergettes in 21•C magazine, 1995
- Art Forums in Broadsheet, 1994
- Game Grrrls in Hyper>> Australasia's only independent games mag, 1994
- Girls in Cyberspace in RealTime, 1994
- Women Computing and Culture in Women Computing and Culture: proceedings of the 1994 conference, 1994
- Women Taking Space in Cyberculture in Gender Representations in the Arts, 1994
- All New Gen in Photofile, 1993
- Infiltrate in Broadsheet, 1993
- Under the VR Spell? in eyeline: east coast contemporary visual arts, 1993